Final Fantasy VII Remake, Part I

The wait is over, its finally here.  What started as a random tech demo at E3 years ago has finally evolved into a reality: the Final Fantasy VII remake is here.  It took a little extra time for me to get my hands on a copy thanks to the COVID-tastic shipping schedule, but my collector’s edition finally arrived early last week.

I’m not going to lie, I haven’t quite finished the game.  Quarantine or no quarantine, putting 40 hours into a game in two weeks is just not something I can do right now.  I thought about going into the history of this game, but I think most hardcore fans already know it and most casual fans don’t care.  I already discussed the original, so that’s out too.  I am going to do a full review next week, but I certainly have enough time in it to give some initial thoughts.

My biggest takeaway here: this isn’t really a remake, its more of a re-imagining.  As far as I am in, I’m not sure how I feel about that.  But there are also a lot of things I am a huge fan of.  Rather than do an incomplete review, I’m going to talk about things I think were positive changes or done better than the original and things I think should have been left on the cutting room floor.  As usual, spoilers ahead.  So, here we go:

Positives:

Cloud’s Personality - Over the years, Cloud has come to be known for something of an “emo” personality.  Whether it comes from the shoddy translation or from getting lumped in with Squall, the protagonist from the next game in the series, it has certainly happened.  That is not what the writers of the original game intended.  He’s supposed to be more arrogant and aloof than cold and distant.  You miss that a little bit in the original, but it comes through perfectly in the remake.

Learning More About Avalanche - Biggs, Wedge and Jessie were side characters in the original, but they have a far bigger role here.  You learn a lot more a bout their personalities, backgrounds and lives and it really adds to the experience.  If you are going to try and pad out 10 hours of a story into 40, this is how you do it.  It was sad enough when they all met their end in the original, but its going to be even worse here.  Having played the original, I can’t help but feel for these characters as I learn more about Wedge’s cats or visit Jessie’s parents knowing that they aren’t going to make it to the end.  All the added background here is well done, compelling and certainly worth the time.

The Plate/Slums Dichotomy - A lot of lip service is given to the difference in quality of life in the slums versus on top of the plate in the original Final Fantasy VII.  The game certainly does a great job of showing that the slums are not a great place to live.  However, you don’t ever see what life on the top plate looks like at all.  That isn’t the case here.  In the remake, you see the difference firsthand.  The serene, cobblestone streets and picket fences of the upper plate are a dire contrast to the garbage filled shanty towns of the slums.  That the slums are fully realized areas to explore, as opposed to one or two screens, also helps.  Both the slums and the upper plate are fully realized communities that feel real and lived in.

The consequences of your actions - In the original, returning from the opening bombing mission takes about a minute and a half and covers three screens.  In the remake, you have to walk all the way back from the mission to the train station.  You take this walk back through a city of scared, panicked people who just witnessed the explosion of a Mako reactor.  You see the destruction your bomb caused to their homes, the damaged roads and burning buildings.  You hear them call you a monster, not knowing it was you who perpetrated the attacks.  I already talked about how important this kind of thing was to the story in my review of the first game and the fact that its cranked up to 11 is awesome.

Voice acting - Shout out to the voice actors, every single one of them is really good at worst and great at best.

Negatives

Roche - I haven’t encountered him much yet, but Roche is just awful.  A few weeks ago, I talked about how the boss characters in Dirge of Cerberus felt like they came from an anime rather than a Final Fantasy game.  Roche fits that same mold.  His speech is filled with obnoxious puns and play-on-words' about motorcycles, racing, etc.  It feels like everything he says comes from a rejected Dragon Ball Z episode.  Everything about it just feels wrong.  One minute you are in a grungy slum, the next you are fighting a guy while standing on a moving motorcycle.  Why?  It just wasn’t necessary.

The War Subplot - I’m not sure I like the whole “restarting the war with Wutai” subplot.  Why can’t Shinra jut want you gone?  Why does Shinra need to be manipulating Avalanche?  Isn’t “they are blowing up our stuff” a good enough reason to hate them?  Again, I’m not that far in yet, but this seems like an unnecessary attempt at trying to shoehorn some unnecessary political statement into a story that is already complicated enough.  We will see where this goes, but as it stands now I don’t like it.

Splitting up the game - I could have told you this before the game even came out, but after playing a few hours I can already say they should have absolutely included more or most of the original game.  Many of the new additions are welcome, but some of the other stuff is just unnecessary.  I don’t want to hear the excuse that it wouldn’t fit on one disc.  If you recall, the original game was on three discs.  Both of its sequels were on four.  I could understand even breaking the story in half, but they could very easily included a good chunk of the post-Midgar game.  Even if you included all the new stuff, include more. Who cares if the game goes 80 hours.  Everyone loses their mind over stuff like the Witcher or Breath of the Wild, those games are universally praised and take way longer than that to complete.  

So, there are some initial thoughts.  I hope I can have the game beaten or nearly beaten by the time I do my next post for a proper review.  Right now, I have to say I am having a great time with the FFVII remake.  The negatives are definitely there and definitely glaring, but the positives have outweighed them thus far.  Will I still be feel the same next week?  Who knows.